


John's Letters

by wolfandthelion



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-01 15:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfandthelion/pseuds/wolfandthelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Letters John writes to Sherlock, whom he thinks dead, in order to release emotions he's been hiding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sherlock,  
What have you done? Why did you do this? How could you do this? Why would you go off and kill yourself…? You jumped, you fell and you died, feeling no pain about it whatsoever. You have no idea about the pain you left behind; the hurt from you being gone. I can’t breathe anymore, Sherlock. I can’t feel anything anymore, I can’t wake up without falling to pieces, I can’t look in the mirror without seeing the smile that has long-left my face, I can’t step out of the house without looking back and hoping to see you bound out of a room and say, “Come on, John! We have a case to solve!” Smile at me, and stride in front of me expecting me to follow like I always would. It’s only been a week, and the pain is still fresh in my mind and in my heart. I can hear the pain beat off me every day, I can hear my soul die inside of me; the soul you saved from the depths of darkness. I cry every morning and every night; my eyes are tired, Sherlock. Can’t you come back? My eyes hurt so much from the tears. I’m afraid one day I’ll wake up and I’d have cried all my tears away because of you. Your smell haunts the flat; I shower and I smell you, I sleep and I smell you, I eat and I smell you. It’s comforting yet so painful at the same time. Sometimes I go to your bed, lie in it and pretend you’re still there, alive and breathing, and ready to deduct something else and accidentally insult someone else. It hasn’t been long, but I miss it so much already. This place is turning cold without you; my home is turning into a haunted house, my heart is turning to stone, and my soul… my soul is gone, Sherlock. I’ve never told you some things, Sherlock, that I should have. I don’t know if I can say them now, it still hurts too much, and the words would stick to my throat and I’d choke on them. I’m scared, Sherlock. I’m going cold, so, so cold. I feel so numb; everything hurts, therefore, nothing hurts anymore. I tried packing up some of your things the other day, but instead of putting anything into boxes, I feel to my knees, threw the things to the ground and screamed, Sherlock. I screamed out of anger, out of hurt, out of pain. I screamed for you to come back, Sherlock! You aren’t dead! You can’t be dead! You mustn’t be dead, because if you are… Why did you have to do it, you damn fool! I let you in and trusted you! I trusted you wouldn’t go away, that you wouldn’t leave me! And what did you do? YOU BLOODY LEFT. You left me here alone…. Alone again. Some of the last words I said to your face still swirl around my head; You machine. You machine. YOU MACHINE. You are a damn machine. Or are you? No, you have a heart. You just never chose to show it. You think I didn’t realize you cared about me?! I knew you did, I bloody knew it or you would have been more of a dick than you were to me.   
God I miss you. One day I’ll get over this pain, and I’ll get over the empty, gaping hole you left in me and my life. But today is not that day, neither is tomorrow, neither is next week, but one day… One day in a few years I’ll be able to find a woman and create a life for myself again.


	2. No Recovery

Sherlock,  
How the days have crawled on since you have died. I wake up, swallow a small morsel of food and some coffee, sit down in my chair and just stay there, glancing at your chair, watching your impression slowly fade away. I’m dead, Sherlock. I’m gone. I sometimes gather up enough strength to leave the house and go down to the café but all I do is sit there, coffee mug loosely held in my hand and I just think; I think of what I lost, of what I no longer have, of you. Oh dear… Call me deranged, call me obsessed, call me whatever but I think of you so much. It’s been many weeks, and it hurts to stay in that flat sometimes. All your things are in boxes now and you’re gone. How long are you going to keep this up?! You can’t be dead… Please, please come home Sherlock. Stop this, stop it now. I wake up in the middle of the night screaming, shouting… The pain, the hole in my chest grows day by day and nothing, no one is there to fill it anymore. Mycroft came by the other day and I wept. All my pride is gone, all my dignity has fallen away from me and all is left of John Watson is a sad man with an aching heart and deflated soul. I scream, and scream for someone to wake me from this never-ending nightmare. Why will no one wake me up? Why won’t you wake me up, Sherlock! I’m scared, so scared. No war can prepare me for this, no amount of gunfire can shake me like this did, and no amount of death and crush me like yours did. You’re in my veins and I can’t get you out. I’ve been sleeping in your room for a while now, taking in your fading smell, feeling your forever distant presence. I lie there and cry at night, I sob and ask the empty air, “Where are you?! Why did you leave me? I need someone… Anyone.”. Aren’t I a sad little man? Sometimes my chest hurts after I sit here, thinking about the life I see ahead of me. Without you, where’s the fun? Where’s the insane laughter? Where are the visits to Buckingham Palace in bed sheets stealing ashtrays?   
You know what I got today? I got your things from the hospital. Your clothes, your valuables… They didn’t bother cleaning them and the blood is still there. We’re meant to bury you soon… Your clothes… I have no bloody idea what to do with them. Keep them in the flat? Ha, that would hurt too much. I’m already going slightly insane from all this. My shrink is calling me hysteric. How will I bury you? How will I stand there knowing you’re in the coffin… Dead. I wish I could hug you, you know? Hug you and show you that I do care. I would have been dead without you; dead on the inside like I am now. You cured me, and I cured you and now, what?! What can I do?! Where can I go…? I’m lost now, Sherlock. I see a black future, an empty life, a tunnel with no end and no light. I just see myself looking back trying to find you, getting more and more lost, twisting deeper into a dark maze that will ensnare me and not let me out. Stuck in the dark pit-less hole forever… Well not forever, I’ll see you again someday. If you really, truly are dead, then I’ll see you when I’ll die. I smile when I think of dying and seeing you, Sherlock. Dying and seeing you and your bouncy curls up there, you and your long coat, deductions and hearing your deep voice and hearty laugh. Being with you and finally being able to tell you what you meant to me, and saying, “Sorry you had to wait so long for me. I came as fast as life would let me go.” and for you to say, “Oh do stop being so emotional! Come on, I have some people with fascinating cases on their death. I’ve been lost without my blogger, and now you’re back we can solve crimes again once more!” and to grin at me as we would stride off and be there, the duo, once more. I dream of this…   
Can I say it now? Can I say, can I write, what I’ve been holding on to since I met you? Sherlock Holmes…. I… No. It hurts so much! The pain, Sherlock; the pain, it beats through me like a current and it won’t stop. It won’t end! It won’t shut up, the voice in my head saying; you’ll never be able to tell him what he meant to you. Never, never, never… Can I shut it off? Can you come shut it off for me?   
CAN’T YOU JUST BLOODY OME BACK? STOP IT NOW; STOP PRETENDING YOU’RE DEAD BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT. YOU’RE NOT, you’re not… My throat hurts from screaming, Sherlock. It aches, like everything else does.


	3. Burial

Sherlock,  
Today was the day. The day you were buried; stuck in the cold, heartless ground and left there with a shiny black head stone to top it all off. Mrs. Hudson came along and we both cried for you. She may have gotten slightly angry with you; shooting the walls, making a mess, body parts in the fridge… As annoyed and angry we would both get about it it’s one of the things I miss most about you and about the way things used to be. You could be a bloody prick sometimes, but hell, you were my… my best friend. Sherlock Holmes, you were my best friend; a man I knew I could trust with my life. I stood at your grave today and held in my tears, trying to show some dignity and respect for you. You wouldn’t approve of a crying Watson; you would find it rather childish more than that. I owe you so much, Sherlock. You handed me a torch in a time of darkness, gave me food in a time of hunger and pulled me out from the sea in which I was drowning in. You were there when no one else was. I was so alone and I owe you so much. I asked you for one miracle at your grave today, Sherlock. Just one more miracle for me; don’t. be. dead. Just don’t. Just stop all this, stop it. I wish on all the shooting stars, all the blown out birthday candles. I pray in every language, religion and every way for you to still be alive. I will stay on my knees for however long it takes, keep my hands pressed together for as long as needed, whisper prayers under my breath until my mouth hurts and my voice is gone for this one wish, this one miracle, to come true. Just come back to me, come back home, please. I beseech you, I beg. I haven’t even prayed for my safe return home from war as much as I pray for this. You know, when I got back home from war I wished for something, anything to come into my life and make it a little better. It didn’t have to be anything grand, it didn’t have to be anything spectacular or brilliant; it could just be something that will give me that push to keep living. I got a lot more than I wished for; I got you. And somehow something realized it was too much for me and took you away from me. You have told me you aren’t a hero, but you couldn’t have been more wrong. You were more of a hero than those people I saw on the battle field. Us, heroes? Ha! We shot to kill at all costs and in return we got shot at too. But you, you helped people; you solved murders, gave justice to people who needed it. You saved people from so much more than another killer or another murder. You saved them from themselves; their pain, their hurt, their desperateness to find out what happened. Just like you saved me.   
Step by step I can slowly try to say what I’ve been meaning to say to you since we met. You are the greatest man I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. I was so lucky to have been able to be your friend. Being loved by someone who seemed to have hated everyone else; funny enough this brings a twitch of a smile to my face. You’re the only person who can bring any positive emotion to me.   
I’m moving out of the flat. It’s too painful to stay there right now. I can’t cry myself to sleep anymore. I don’t have the energy anymore, but sometimes I want to cry myself to sleep. I’ve actually slept well after crying myself to sleep, isn’t that sad? One day I’ll be able to fall asleep without shedding a single tear, but that day is still far and nowhere close in sight. I don’t want to leave the flat behind but the main is still so immense; it has no grown into a numbing throb that pulses through my body. I’m so numb all the time and it feels so good; not feeling instead of feeling the painful current control my body. I lie down and feel the numbness wash over me and let it engulf my body, my thoughts and control my dry soul. I lie down and stare at the ceiling, letting numbness control me and then I lay there for hours, not thinking, not speaking, not moving and just letting any feelings go. Am I going insane? Maybe… My shrink is prescribing me some light medication that should get rid of these “signs of depression”. She’s saying I lost weight; a lot of weight. I hadn’t noticed anything until she said so. Now I see why all my jeans are so big for me and my sweaters hang on my like a bed sheet rather than a normal piece of clothing. I don’t care, maybe if I don’t eat life will not want me anymore.   
I’m not suicidal because I know you would find it silly. I’m still alive because I have you to hold on to. I’ll always hold onto you.


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock,  
I’ve finally moved into a new flat; it’s small and rather dull but I suppose it will do for now. Packing up my things from your apartment was hard and I cried. I cried and cried until I had cried away all my tears and was left standing there with my clothes in hand, looking around the room and thinking of the many times you woke me from my sleep as we went on cases together in the middle of the night or you woke me with your horrific experiments… It shouldn’t hurt this much, you know? The pain should have subsided until now, it should have gotten better but it hasn’t. I feel a dull ache in me all the time and it beats in me even harder when I think of you or pass 221B… Why did you have to leave such a big impression on me? Why did you have to be the person who changed my life?! I don’t get it… I feel as though sometimes the world is playing a sick joke on me and shoving it in my face that nothing I lo- care about stays with me, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I miss you so much that, the other day while sitting by the window of the café, I was drinking coffee and could have sworn that when I turned my head to look out the window I saw you pass by. The man looked so much like you! He had a long, navy-blue coat like yours, bouncy and curly hair and the way he walked was so much like the way you used to walk; striding across the pavement. I could have sworn that man was staring at me for a while but I hadn’t noticed. Am I going crazy now? Seeing you in people who may not even resemble you?! Oh god… I don’t know what to do with myself; there is no fun, no meaning in anything. You used to make life seem so interesting with your deductions and you made life feel so dangerous and adrenaline pumping; now all I see when I look around is sad people with little to know logic or knowledge of anything and who are oblivious to everything worth looking at. No danger, no fun, no nothing…   
I’m still angry at you for jumping off the building, and I still don’t understand why you did it. What happened that you had to kill yourself? What happened to Moriarty?! Why did you do this? You were worth so much more than a suicide you bloody fool! You were worth so much more than you got…   
I saw Molly the other day; she seems a lot more timid than usual. Maybe she’s more shaken than I am or it’s her way of coping with it. Your brother I still pretty impassive about everything; when he came to see me just after you… died, I was angry at him. He was the reason Moriarty knew so damn much about your life and about you. Your brother is a bloody idiot, you know? British government or not I gave him a few choice words after I practically broke down in front of him. I haven’t seen Lestrade since you…. Yeah. I don’t know if I have the heart to see him again; the fact that he actually doubted you is just… is just idiotic! You know, it’s times like these that I see how you thought everyone around you was a completely ignorant fool, and idiot. Even I’m an idiot for not having been honest with you while you were still here. Part of me still refuses to believe you’re dead (especially since I seem to see you about whenever I leave the house, but it’s probably my imagination playing tricks on me) and I still have a small twinkling hope that one day I’ll wake up and open up my front door to you smiling and to say to me, “You going to let me in, we’ve got work to do…” Oh dear, Sherlock… I feel as though I’m mourning over you as a lost soul mate rather than my best friend. No wonder people think I’m gay! I can’t hold onto a girl for more than a few months or even remember their names properly but I counted how many messages that damn woman sent to you during Christmas! Jesus…  
You know what they had written about you in the papers after you jumped, after you died?! “Suicide of fake genius” HA! SUICIDE OF FAKE GENIUS. Everyone believes that you really lied about everything because the lie was so well wrapped in actual truth people actually believed it. That horrible reporter woman even won some sort of prize for her article. She’s rolling in fame and appreciation after what she did to you, after she believed Moriarty, or in her eyes, Richard Brook, after destroying you… I know you pretended not to care like you always do, you pretended it didn’t matter. You thought that I can’t see anything, but you’re wrong. I saw the way your eyes beat with pain when you saw what she was doing, I saw the temporary doubt in your eyes when Moriarty was lying and saying he was paid by you, I saw you crumble in on yourself and I saw the anger flash through your eyes. I never believed you were heartless, Sherlock, never. More than that you react to everything and anything, more than a normal person reacts to. Irene Adler was a perfect example, hell, even I am a perfect example! Don’t think I didn’t see how you began to humanize yourself after we met. I know I helped you too… You didn’t have to say much for me to see but I just wish we could say this to one another now! It kills me that I’ll just never be able to look into your other-worldly eyes, open my mouth and say the words that have been stuck in my throat for too bloody long!!


	5. Mary

Sherlock,  
I’ve... met someone; a woman, a lovely, beautiful woman. Her name is Mary and she is just a joy to be around. I won’t ramble on about her too much because I know how you would feel about reading all these feelings I have towards her. Right now we’re just friends but I really want it to progress, Sherlock. She’s the first person since you… you died who makes me feel better. She helps fill that gaping hole in my chest just a little but it’s enough to make everything hurt less and for me it’s more than enough. I don’t know what it is about her that makes me feel so much better; does she remind me of you? Maybe… Or maybe I see something of you in her, some little kink or quirk that reminds me of you or maybe she doesn’t remind me of you and I feel so much better around her because she knows what to say and how to be with me; she’s the first person who doesn’t call me crazy or gay whenever I mention you or even try to talk about you. She didn’t call me weak or fragile when I got so upset when I started talking about you she didn’t think I was an idiot spending so much time with you; she’s the one, Sherlock. Mary is the one for me, I know it. I can’t say she helps me cope with your death, because nothing can help me cope with that. She just eases the pain; she’s like my drug, easing the pain away whenever I’m with her. Oh, how I wish you could meet her, Sherlock! I know you would come to like her because she doesn’t speak when she knows she has nothing of importance to say, she doesn’t judge and she is such an understanding woman. She’s also such a strong-willed woman too; don’t put her down or else she will serve up the fury hidden beneath such a petite exterior. She’s also so smart; she reads, she listens and she observes. She’s just… perfect, for me at least.   
Don’t get me wrong, when she’s not around I feel that hole in me open up again and then it hurts even more, it aches and I want to scream. Sherlock, no one will ever be able to replace you, not even Mary. I’m a lost hope, and I think even Mary can see that, but I suppose the reason that she sticks around me is because she sees that when I’m with her I somehow find my way for a short while. I know you’re never coming back; even though I’ve seen people like you around London sometimes I know it’s just my mind playing tricks on me, just my desires acting up.   
If the roles were reversed, if I would have jumped and you left to watch and see my dead body lying on the cold pavement on a dim London morning, what would you have done? Would you have reacted the same way to it as I did? I doubt it… But I do know it would have hurt you even more because I was your only friend and I would have left you behind and you’d be stuck solving crimes all on your own again. You feel everything on a much larger scale than I do; would you have turned to drugs? Yes, you would have because you’re a bloody idiot sometimes… Or you were a bloody idiot.  
Just so you know, I never gave away your damn science equipment or threw it away, I’m keeping it, or rather Mrs. Hudson is keeping it because I begged her to. I just feel as though it would be… right. They were your things and I have no right to do as I please with them. Same goes with your damn skull, considering it was your friend at one point if I recall correctly?   
As each day passes I come closer to the day that I can say what I should have said to you long before you died; the pain is still as strong as the first day but my self-control is getting better and the day that I’ll be able to say it without choking on my own words so I don’t destroy myself is on its way, and when that day comes I know I’ll finally be able to end these chapters of my life as I set off on a new one.


End file.
